The Holy Lance (German: Heilige Lanze), also known as the Holy Spear, Spear of Destiny, Lance of Longinus, and Spear of Longinus, is the name given to the lance that pierced the side of Jesus as he hung on the cross, according to the Gospel of John. Many churches throughout the world claim to possess this lance, although none of the claims have been proven.

The lance (Greek: λόγχη, lonkhē) is mentioned only in the Gospel of John (19:31–37) and not in any of the Synoptic Gospels. The gospel states that the Romans planned to break Jesus' legs, a practice known as crurifragium, which was a method of hastening death during a crucifixion. Just before they did so, they realized that Jesus was already dead and that there was no reason to break his legs. To make sure that he was dead, a Roman soldier (named in extra-Biblical tradition as Longinus) stabbed him in the side.

One of the soldiers pierced his side with a lance (λόγχη), and immediately there came out blood and water.

The phenomenon of blood and water was considered a miracle by Origen. Catholics, while accepting the biological reality of blood and water as emanating from the pierced heart and body cavity of Christ, also acknowledge the allegorical interpretation: it represents one of the main key teachings/mysteries of the Church, and one of the main themes of the Gospel of Matthew, which is the homoousian interpretation adopted by the First Council of Nicaea, that "Jesus Christ was both true God and true man." The blood symbolizes his humanity, the water his divinity. A ceremonial remembrance of this is done when a Catholic priest says Mass: The priest pours a small amount of water into the wine before the consecration, an act which acknowledges Christ's humanity and divinity and recalls the issuance of blood and water from Christ's side on the cross. Saint Faustina Kowalska, a Polish nun whose advocacy and writings led to the establishment of the Divine Mercy devotion, also acknowledged the miraculous nature of the blood and water, explaining that the blood is a symbol of the divine mercy of Christ, while the water is a symbol of His divine compassion and of baptismal waters.

In most variants of the OrthodoxDivine Liturgy, the priest lances the host (prosphoron) with a liturgical spear before it is divided in honor of the Trinity, the Theotokos (Virgin Mary), and various other remembrances. The deacon recites the relevant passage from the Gospel of John, along with sections of the Acts of the Apostles dealing with commemoration of the saints. Most of these pieces, set aside, become the antidoron to be distributed after the liturgy, a relic of the ancient agape of apostolic times, considered to be blessed but not consecrated or sanctified in the Western understanding. The main piece becomes The Lamb, the host that is consecrated on the altar and distributed to the faithful for Holy Communion. For a fuller treatment, see Lamb (liturgy).

The name of the soldier who pierced Christ's side with a lonchē is not given in the Gospel of John, but in the oldest known references to the legend, the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus appended to late manuscripts of the 4th century Acts of Pilate, the soldier is identified as a centurion and called Longinus (making the spear's "correct" Latin name Lancea Longini).

A form of the name Longinus occurs on a miniature in the Rabula Gospels (conserved in the Laurentian Library, Florence), which was illuminated by one Rabulas in the year 586. In the miniature, the name LOGINOS (ΛΟΓΙΝΟC) is written in Greek characters above the head of the soldier who is thrusting his lance into Christ's side. This is one of the earliest records of the name, if the inscription is not a later addition.[1]

The Holy Lance in Rome is preserved beneath the dome of Saint Peter's Basilica, although the Catholic Church makes no claim as to its authenticity. The first historical reference to the lance was made by the pilgrim Antoninus of Piacenza (AD 570) in his descriptions of the holy places of Jerusalem, writing that he saw in the Basilica of Mount Zion "the crown of thorns with which Our Lord was crowned and the lance with which He was struck in the side".[2] A mention of the lance occurs in the so-called Breviarius at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The presence in Jerusalem of the relic is attested by Cassiodorus (c. 485–585)[3][4] as well as by Gregory of Tours (c. 538–594), who had not actually been to Jerusalem.

As for the larger portion of the lance, Arculpus claimed he saw it at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre around 670 in Jerusalem, but there is otherwise no mention of it after the sack in 615. Some claim that the larger relic had been conveyed to Constantinople in the 8th century, possibly at the same time as the Crown of Thorns. At any rate, its presence at Constantinople seems to be clearly attested by various pilgrims, particularly Russians, and, though it was deposited in various churches in succession, it seems possible to trace it and distinguish it from the relic of the point. Sir John Mandeville declared in 1357 that he had seen the blade of the Holy Lance both at Parisand at Constantinople, and that the latter was a much larger relic than the former; it is worth adding that Mandeville is not generally regarded as one of the Middle Ages' most reliable witnesses, and his supposed travels are usually treated as an eclectic amalgam of myths, legends and other fictions. "The lance which pierced Our Lord's side" was among the relics at Constantinople shown in the 1430s to Pedro Tafur, who added "God grant that in the overthrow of the Greeks they have not fallen into the hands of the enemies of the Faith, for they will have been ill-treated and handled with little reverence."[6]

Whatever the Constantinople relic was, it did fall into the hands of the Turks, and in 1492, under circumstances minutely described in Pastor's History of the Popes, the Sultan Bayezid II sent it to Pope Innocent VIII to encourage the pope to continue to keep his brother and rival Zizim (Cem Sultan) prisoner. At this time great doubts as to its authenticity were felt at Rome, as Johann Burchard records,[7] because of the presence of other rival lances in Paris (the point that had been separated from the lance), Nuremberg (see Holy Lance in Vienna below), and Armenia (see Holy Lance in Echmiadzin below). In the mid-18th century Pope Benedict XIV states that he obtained from Paris an exact drawing of the point of the lance, and that in comparing it with the larger relic in St. Peter's he was satisfied that the two had originally formed one blade.[8] This relic has never since left Rome, and its resting place is at Saint Peter's.

In 1273, the Holy Lance was first used in the coronation ceremony. Around 1350, Charles IV had a golden sleeve put over the silver one, inscribed Lancea et clavus Domini (Lance and nail of the Lord). In 1424, Sigismund had a collection of relics, including the lance, moved from his capital in Prague to his birthplace, Nuremberg, and decreed them to be kept there forever. This collection was called the Imperial Regalia (Reichskleinodien).

When the French Revolutionary army approached Nuremberg in the spring of 1796 the city councilors decided to remove the Reichskleinodien to Vienna for safe keeping. The collection was entrusted to one "Baron von Hügel", who promised to return the objects as soon as peace had been restored and the safety of the collection assured.[citation needed] However, the Holy Roman Empire was disbanded in 1806 and the Reichskleinodien remained in the keeping of the Habsburgs. When the city councilors asked for the Reichskleinodien back, they were refused. As part of the imperial regalia it was kept in the Imperial Treasury and was known as the lance of Saint Maurice.

During the Anschluss, when Austria was annexed to Germany, the Reichskleinodien were returned to Nuremberg and afterwards hidden. They were found by invading U.S. troops and returned to Austria by American General George S. Patton after World War II.

Dr. Robert Feather, an English metallurgist and technical engineering writer, tested the lance for a documentary in January 2003.[9] He was given unprecedented permission not only to examine the lance in a laboratory environment, but was allowed to remove the delicate bands of gold and silver that hold it together. In the opinion of Feather and other academic experts, the likeliest date of the spearhead is the 7th century A.D. – only slightly earlier than the Museum's own estimate. However, Dr. Feather stated in the same documentary that an iron pin – long claimed to be a nail from the crucifixion, hammered into the blade and set off by tiny brass crosses – is "consistent" in length and shape with a 1st-century A.D. Roman nail. According to Paul the Deacon, the Lombard royal line bore the name of the Gungingi,[10] which Karl Hauck[11] and Stefano Gasparri[12] maintain identified them with the name of Odin’s lance, Gungnir (a sign that they probably claimed descent from Odin, as did most of the Germanic royal lines). Paul the Deacon notes[13] that the inauguration rite of a Lombard king consisted essentially of his grasping of a sacred/royal lance. Milan, which had been the capital of the Western Roman Empire in the time of Constantine, was the capital of the Lombard kings Perctarit and his son Cunipert, who became Catholic Christians in the 7th century. Thus it seems possible that the iron point of the Lombardic royal lance might have been recast in the 7th century in order to enshrine one of the 1st-century Roman nails that St. Helena was reputed to have found at Calvary and brought to Milan, thus giving a new Christian sacred aura to the old pagan royal lance. If Charlemagne’s inauguration as the King of the Lombards in 774 had likewise included his grasping of this now-Christianized sacred or royal lance, this would explain how it would have eventually become the oldest item in the German imperial regalia. The Iron Crown of Lombardy (dated to the 8th century), which eventually became the primary symbol of Lombardic kingship, takes its name from the tradition that it contains one of the holy nails. Gregory of Tours in his Libri Historiarum VII, 33, states that in 585 the Merovingian king Guntram designated his nephew Childebert II his heir by handing him his lance; it is possible that a royal lance was a symbol of kingship among the Merovingian kings and that a nail from Calvary was in the 7th century incorporated into this royal lance and thus eventually would have come into the German imperial regalia.

The Holy Lance in Echmiadzin (Armenian: Geghard) is conserved in Vagharshapat, Armenia (Echmiadzin), the religious capital of the country. The first source that mentions it is a text Holy Relics of Our Lord Jesus Christ, in a thirteenth-century Armenian manuscript. According to this text, the spear which pierced Jesus was to have been brought to Armenia by the Apostle Thaddeus. The manuscript does not specify precisely where it was kept, but the Holy Lance gives a description that exactly matches the lance, the monastery gate, since the thirteenth century precisely, the name of Geghardavank (Monastery of the Holy Lance).[clarification needed]

In 1655, the French traveler Jean-Baptiste Tavernier was the first Westerner to see this relic in Armenia. In 1805, the Russians captured the monastery and the relic was moved to Tchitchanov Geghard, Tbilisi, Georgia. It was later returned to Armenia at Echmiadzin, where it is always visible in the museum Manoogian, enshrined in a 17th-century reliquary.

During the June 1098 Siege of Antioch, a poor monk named Peter Bartholomew reported that he had a vision in which St. Andrew told him that the Holy Lance was buried in the Church of St. Peter in Antioch. After much digging in the cathedral, Peter apparently discovered a lance. Despite the doubts of many, including the papal legate Adhemar of Le Puy, the discovery of the Holy Lance of Antioch inspired the starving Crusaders to break the siege and secure the city.[14]

Another lance has been preserved at Kraków, Poland, since at least the 13th century. However, German records indicate that it was a copy of the Vienna lance. Emperor Henry II had it made with a small sliver of the original lance. Another copy was given to the Hungarian king at the same time.

In his opera Parsifal, Richard Wagner identifies the Holy Spear with two items that appear in Wolfram von Eschenbach's medieval poem Parzival, a bleeding spear in the Castle of the Grail and the spear that has wounded the Fisher King. The opera's plot concerns the consequences of the spear's loss by the Knights of the Grail and its recovery by Parsifal. Having decided that the blood on the Spear was that of the wounded Saviour – Christ is never named in the opera – Wagner has the blood manifest itself in the Grail rather than on the spearhead.[15]

The "Spear of Destiny" is a name given to the Holy Lance in various accounts that attribute mystical powers to it. Many of these have originated in recent times, and several popular New Age and conspiracy theory books have popularized the legend of the Spear.

Trevor Ravenscroft's 1973 book, The Spear of Destiny[16] (as well as a later book, The Mark of the Beast[17]), claims that Adolf Hitler started World War II in order to capture the spear, with which he was obsessed. At the end of the war the spear came into the hands of US General George S. Patton. According to legend, losing the spear would result in death, and that was fulfilled when Hitler committed suicide and Patton died in a car accident in an army camp.[18]

Ravenscroft repeatedly attempted to define the mysterious "powers" that the legend says the spear serves. He found it to be a hostile and evil spirit, which he sometimes referred to as the Antichrist, though that is open to interpretation. He never actually referred to the spear as spiritually controlled, but rather as intertwined with all of mankind's ambitions.

Dr. Howard A. Buechner, M.D., professor of medicine at Tulane and then Louisiana State University, wrote two books on the spear.[19][20] Buechner was a retired colonel with the U.S. Army who served in World War II and had written a book about the Dachau massacre. He claims he was contacted by a former U-boat submariner, the pseudonymous “Capt. Wilhelm Bernhart”, who claimed the spear currently on display in Vienna is a fake. "Bernhart" said the real spear was sent by Hitler to Antarctica along with other Nazi treasures, under the command of Col. Maximilian Hartmann. In 1979 Hartmann allegedly recovered the treasures. Bernhart presented Buechner with the log from this expedition as well as pictures of the objects recovered, claiming that after the Spear of Destiny was recovered, it was hidden somewhere in Europe by a Nazi secret society. After contacting most of the members of the alleged expedition and others involved, including Hitler Youth Leader Artur Axmann, Buechner became convinced the claims were true.

In DC Comics continuity, Hitler possessed the Spear, which he used to prevent any superhero from interfering in World War II. The Spear creates a zone of influence surrounding Hitler, and any superhero who ventures into this zone is vulnerable to Hitler's control.

During the second season of the TNT television series Witchblade, the second episode, "Destiny," involves Kenneth Irons procuring the Longinus Lance in an effort to defeat Sara Pezzini and the Witchblade in combat (2002).

The Spear appears in the seventh and eighth episodes of season 3 of The Borgias. The Spear of Longinus is a relic preserved by Jewish merchants who have fled from Constantinople to Rome, and is accepted as authentic by Pope Alexander VI. The Pope plans to use it to attract pilgrims to the Jubilee of 1500 in order to fill church coffers.

The Lance of Longinus is a recurring item in the anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion and related media. In the series, the Lance is a weapon that can disable beings of near-divine power.

The lance appears as the "True Longinus," one of the Thirteen Longinus gears, in the light novel High School DxD.

The Spear of Destiny appears in the Vendettas campaign of the video game The Darkness II, in which the Brotherhood tries to procure the Spear of Destiny in an attempt to kill Jackie with it.

The Spear of Destiny appears in the episode "The Legend of the Kuro Kabuto" of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as part of Steranko's collection of stolen valuables.

The Spear of Destiny appears as one of five Holy Relics in the Armory of Hades at the end of Skin Game, the fifteenth book in the Dresden Files supernatural mystery series.

The legend of the lance, and the Roman soldier who allegedly used it (who is also cursed to live and fight until the return of Jesus), is the basis of Casca, a series of paperback and e-book military-science fiction works.

The Spear appears in season 4 of television series The Unit, in an episode named "The Spear of Destiny."

MacLellan, Alec. The Secret of the Spear: The Mystery of the Spear of Longinus. Souvenir Press, 2005 (Reprint).

Morris, Colin. "Policy and vision: The case of the Holy Lance found at Antioch", in John Gillingham & J. C. Holt, War and Government in the Middle Ages: Essays in honour of J. O. Prestwich, Boydell, 1984, pp. 33–45

Schier, Volker and Corine Schleif. "Seeing and Singing, Touching and Tasting the Holy Lance. The Power and Politics of Embodied Religious Experiences in Nuremberg, 1424–1524." Signs of Change. Transformations of Christian Traditions and their Representation in the Arts, 1000–2000, edited by Nils Holger Petersen, Claus Cluver, and Nicolas Bell. Amsterdam – New York: Rodopi, 2004, 401–426.

Sheffy, Lester Fields. Use of the Holy Lance in the First Crusade. L.F. Sheffy, 1915.

Secrets of the Holy Lance by Jerry E. Smith & George Piccard, Copyright 2005, Published by Adventures Unlimited Press